Tuesday, December 20, 2022

2022 Pro Bowl Predictions

 By John Turney 
Tomorrow the NFL will announce the annual NFC and AFC Pro Bowl teams. Thank goodness there will be no game this year. But the honor of being voted among the best will remain and there will be a flag football game in Las Vegas coached by Peyton (AFC) and Eli (NFC) Manning among other things to replace the actual useless game. 

Before they are announced here are our best guesses based on the kind of years players are having and trying to divine how players and coaches voted and then factoring in the fan voting and what teams have the strongest support for their own players.

Here goes—

AFC
Offense
RB—Nick Chubb, Cle;  Derrick Henry, Ten; Josh Jacobs, LV
FB—Patrick Ricard, Bal
TE—Travis Kelce, KC; Mark Andrews, Bal
Defense
OLB—Matt Judon, NE; Matt Milano, Buf; Jaelan Phillips, Mia
ILB—Tremaine Edmunds, Buf; Nick Bolton, KC
SS—Derwin James, LAC
Special Teams
Punter—Tommy Townsend, KC
Place Kicker—Justin Tucker, Bal
Ret—Marcus Jones, NE
Special teams—Brenden Schooler, NE
Long snapper—Thomas Hennessy, NYJ
NFC
Offense
QB—Jalen Hurts, Phi; Geno Smith, Sea; Aaron Rodgers, GB
RB—Saquan Barkley, NYG; Christian McCaffrey, Car-SF;  Dalvin Cook, Min
FB—Kyle Juszczyk, SF
TE—George Kittle, SF, T.J. Hockenson, Det-Min
C—Jason Kelce, Phi; Frank Ragnow, Det
Defense
DE—Nick Bosa, SF; Brian Burns, Car; Josh Sweat, Phi
LB—Fred Warner, SF; Bobby Wagner, LAR
Special teams
Punter— Tress Way, Was
Place Kicker—Jason Myers, Sea
Ret—Kene Nwangwu, Min
Special teams—George Odum, SF
Long snapper—Andrew DePaola, Min

The AFC punter could be Ryan Stonehouse, he is the leading vote-getter in the AFC but his net punting average is lower than Townsend's.

The thrid NFC quartertback was also hard. It seems that only two quarterbacks in the NFC are having truly Pro Bowl-worthy seasons—Hurts and Smith. But there have to be three chosen but who will be the third? Rodgers? Brady? Cousins? Hard to know but we went with Rodgers as maybe having a slightly better season than Brady. 

Cousins is winning and some people don't think QB Wins is a stat and it's not, it's a record but that may push him to the Pro Bowl team ahead of Rodgers and maybe Brady. None of them are killing it in the passing department.

The third NFC tackle was difficult. Wirfs has missed some time and Andrew Thomas and Christian Darrisaw are worthy but the only question is can either one get enough support to supplant Wirfs. It would seem that with two guys that are coming out they might take votes from each other and since Wirfs is more known and was having an excellent season before the injury that he would be the favorite. 

Joe Thuney of the Chiefs could be one of the three AFC guards. We just had to pick and see what happens in some cases. Alec Ingold would be the second choice to Ricard at AFC fullback. 

We'll see tomorrow if we get anywhere close.

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